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April 8, 2013

Filthy Review - 'The Lords of Salem'

The Lords of
Salem (2013)

Review by
Jude Felton

As a film
director, Rob Zombie has carved a huge divide between those that have embraced
his movies, and those that consider them with nothing but contempt. Personally
speaking, out of his four live action movies, I am a big fan of three. House of
1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects were two sides of the same beaten-up old
coin, and were/are damned entertaining, and as for his version of Halloween;
yeah, I dug it. It was a different take on the classic film and, aside from one
or two issues; it’s a damned solid film. The sequel? The less said about that
one the better, in my opinion. Now it’s Zombie’s time to bring us some brand
new material, which of course still homages the past, and don’t you just know
it, this one is going to be even more divisive than his previous films.

Stepping away
from the straightforward narrative style of his previous movies, The Lords of
Salem takes the viewer on a strange and almost hallucinogenic trip, as we
follow radio DJ Heidi Laroq (Sheri Moon). Heidi co-hosts a show with Whitey
Salvador and Herman Jackson (Jeff Daniel Phillips and Ken Foree respectively),
in which they play rocking tunes and mock their guests. All is fun and games in
Heidi’s world. That is until she is given a package containing an old vinyl
album.

The album,
which is from The Lords, is packaged in a strange wooden box, upon which/witch
is a strange symbol. Even stranger than this is the effect that playing the
record has on Heidi, as well as several other female listeners. There appears
to be some connection between the record and events that happened in Salem
many, many years ago.

Now, the
star, and lead, of The Lords of Salem is without a doubt Sheri Moon. However,
aside from the opening third of the film, she does not have all that much
dialogue to work with. Instead, the film, and story, adopts a narrative style
that doesn’t follow your usual American horror conventions. Heidi is still very
much the focus of The Lords of Salem, but story is propelled forward by the
likes of Bruce Davison’s Francis character and the three mysterious women,
played by Judy Geeson, Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn, who live in the same
apartment building as Heidi. Could they also have ties to the past?

The Lords of
Salem is an incredibly visual film, with plenty of nods to Italian and Spanish
horror of the 70s, as well as England’s Hammer Horror, although it is not
overly reliant on these visuals. It is a film that doesn’t follow your typical
storytelling conventions though, and for this reason I can see it alienating
many folk.

Is it a perfect
film? It certainly is not. In my humble opinion it is incredibly good, and is
definitely a bold statement from Zombie, but I was left with quite a few
questions about it. Not questions about the plot, but more in terms of what
wasn’t there, what could be there and whether Zombie has something more lined
up in the future.

There were
characters and actors that were advertised as being in the film, and aside from
the late, great Richard Lynch, I don’t know why they weren’t in the film
itself. Is there an extended version of this film planned for further down the
line? I also question the release itself. In the past all of Zombie’s films
have been released with an extensive amount of extras; usually an entire disc’s
worth of them. This UK DVD release, aside from a couple of preview trailers,
only has a trailer for the film itself included. For a start, why no Blu-ray?
This film is definitely one that would lend itself to the HD viewing
experience, yet it is only seeing a DVD (and limited theatrical release). Maybe
these questions will be answered in the fullness of time?

Overall
though, in terms of the film, The Lords of Salem worked far more than when it
didn’t. The cast seemed a more natural fit than in the past, with even the
usual Zombie extras being there to play their roles, rather than just appear as
cool cameos. At times it is moderately gruesome, although not anywhere near as
overtly violent as past Zombie flicks. It’s a film of experiments and vision,
of Rob Zombie not giving a flying fuck about the commercial aspects of film. It
will baffle some and some will downright hate it, but I am convinced that there
are those out there that will embrace its twisted logic and charm.

The Lords of
Salem is without doubt Rob Zombie sticking a big middle finger up and
delivering a film that he wanted to see, and obviously cared a hell of lot
about. This is about as far removed from his previous films as he could get,
and I absolutely enjoyed every second of it. It won’t answer all of your
questions, and the nightmarish logic will downright piss off many, and this is
just part of the reason I enjoyed it so much.

Horror films
are all too often safely packaged products, in this day and age, that don’t
challenge the viewer, let alone scare them. They have become product, rather
than art, and as with all art it is down to the individual viewer as to what
they get from it. The Lords of Salem delivers the creepy moments, visual
flourishes and more than enough nightmarish logic to keep it firmly away from
the mainstream.

If you want a
safely packaged horror film you’d be better off looking elsewhere. However, if
you want to watch a film that, despite its flaws, attempts to challenge the
viewer and offer up something new, whilst still paying respect to the genre,
you really should visit The Lords of Salem.

Divisive? You
ain’t seen nothing yet, baby!

The Lords of Salem will hit UK theaters on April 19th, with the DVD to follow on April 29th, and is released by Momentum Pictures.

1 comment:

Nice write up! I'd say we're totally on the same page except that you personally enjoyed it more than I. The tonal shifts really bugged me after a while, and more than anything, I wish RZ would use an outside screenwriter because dialogue and narratives are not his strongest suit. He's a visualist and an idea man.